The Robe is fascinating as the first CinemaScope film but not all that great from most other standpoints; as a drama it's almost as stiff as Quo Vadis from a few years before, and as a biblical epic it's neither very compelling nor accomplished.

William Wyler's Ben Hur has twice the sound and fury, as pertains the Christ story, which is treated rather perfunctorily here, with dramatic clashes of thunder and lightning, and Victor Mature doing his best to express anguish on Golgotha hill. Burton himself doesn't know exactly what to do with some of his scenes, and plays his 'agitated, bewitched' state as if he had a high fever and a splitting headache. Jean Simmons is called upon to be colorlessly virtuous, and a distinguished cast pretty much goes through the motions. Michael Ansara plays Judas in one far too ironic scene. Michael Rennie and Dean Jagger are kind of a snooze, Ernest Thesiger is also rather dull. Later monster actor Jeff Morrow has a nice fat role as a thuggish Tribune who takes a disliking to Richard Burton, but frankly doesn't distinguish himself. And you have to look fast to spot beauty Dawn Addams, she's gone so fast.

What we get is not the spirit but the letter of the Bible, safe and sane, and only Jay Robinson's wonderfully fruity Caligula has much life in him. We see the miracles in the Holy Land and hear a lot of talk, but it's Alfred Newman's stirring score that's doing most of the work. Perhaps Fox's piousness in this production should be judged by their rather exploitative direct sequel the following year, Demetrius and the Gladiators, where the Victor Mature character survives to hack up gladiators in the arena, the kind of stuff audiences really went to these sword 'n Bible shows to see. Jay Robinson's Caligula is a total scream in that film - it's actually a lot more fun than this one.

As for the process, there's nothing much to say. After all the talk about the lack of lenses of varying focal lengths, a very un-flat field, and the CinemaScope mumps, we don't see much of the early CinemaScope flaws here. The camera pans and the field of vision doesn't warp. There are only a few closeups and lots of medium shots, but people's faces don't squash out perceptably. This is possibly because the engineers at Fox made sure every shot looked good for this crucial R&D feature. In its first year or so, 'Scope used a much wider aspect ratio (something akin to 2:66?). If you see a theatrical revival of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at 2:35, you'll instantly notice that the film has been re-formatted to 'new Scope' - with the image cropped on the left and all the compositions thrown off.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
The Robe rates:
Movie: Okay
Video: Good-
Sound: Good
Supplements: Trailer
Packaging: Amaray case
Reviewed: October 14, 2001